Data management systems store, maintain, and update data for the operation of a facility or function of a business. One example of a data management system is a customer relationship management (CRM) system. A customer relationship management system is a distributed processing system that typically includes a client interface, data management application, and a customer relationship database. The client interface is an application program that is used by a customer service representative to assist a customer with a purchase, technical assistance, or billing issues, for example. The data management application includes one or more computer programs that manage access to the customer relationship database or databases. The data management application arbitrates requests for customer relationship data, enables updates to the customer relationship data, and supports mining of the database or databases for the generation of reports used to evaluate customer needs or trends. The customer relationship database may include one or more databases or repositories in which variable data regarding customer relationships are stored. Typically, customer relationship data includes customer identification data, customer purchase histories, customer invoices and payment history, support issues and a history of the resolution of those issues, as well as other data corresponding to the relationship between a business or other entity and its various customers. Other data management systems include those that manage variable data for operation of a manufacturing facility, a warehouse/inventory function, sales/service organizations, and the like.
Document production systems typically include a document management station, a document data input station, one or more document processors, and a document printer. The document input station controls the input of data to be included in the documents generated by the document management system. Document data may be input to a document production system through a document scanner or from reading data stored on electronic media. A document scanner typically includes a platen and document illumination system for imaging a hard copy of a document to generate an electronic version of the document. Likewise, a disk drive or CD-ROM reader may be used to input data for document processing and printing.
Once document data are input to a document production system, the document management station may be used to generate a layout or template for a document. A layout or template is a document form with fields in which data is written before the document is printed. The document management station is also used to specify parameters for processing of a document for the printing and/or finishing of the print job. For example, the color rendering of a document, duplex or simplex reproduction, paper size, template selection and the like may be specified for a print job. Job finishing may include stapling or other binding required for the final production of a reproduced version of a document. The document processors perform a document composition process in which document templates are populated with data and processed for printing.
When a business desires to generate documents to market new products or services to existing customers, it currently has to extract the information from a data management system, such as its customer relationship system, and provide these data in a format acceptable for input to a document production system. These data may then be used to generate template forms for proofing by the data management system user. Once the template proofs are approved, a print job is performed in which the approved template is populated with the data provided from the data management system so the documents may be printed by the document production system.
One problem with this method of generating documents having variable data maintained by the data management system is the requirement of extracting the variable data from the data management system, preparing the data, and transporting the data to the document production system for input. During proofing, reviewers may become aware of additional data that may be useful for the documents being produced. If such an awareness arises, the data must be extracted, analyzed to confirm its usefulness, and then transported to the document production system for input. This is a time-consuming iterative process. Furthermore, data in the data management system are being updated during the document production process but the newly acquired data are unavailable for the documents being generated. Thus, the data within the produced documents may be dated by the time the documents are finally populated with data for printing.
There is a need, therefore, for a system and method for the timely provision of customer relationship data from a CRM system to a document production system to facilitate the generation of customer support documents.
There is also a need for a system and method for enabling the updating of document data with data from the CRM system during composition of documents by the document production system.
There is a need for a system and method for providing data from a data management system to a document production system to populate document templates and facilitate the generation of documents with the variable data from the data management system.